The Darkshredder's struggle

[Darkshredder]

I feel like I'm about to get injured. I keep waking up with a sore knee and today while waiting in line for coffee I shifted positions on my left leg and this weird little pang shot up my shin. Straaaange. I think it has something to do with my way too lax style of flicking the bag up before I start a run. I should stop that and do what everyone else does: just kind of toe stall thrust the bag with the thigh more and then start. it just feels better my way. Ugh.

anyway, really fine session today. Not sure how long I played. Felt like a long time but it probably wasn't. My endurance is taking a slight dive. Ever so slight. But these were something things I was working on (or did):

flip reaper - didn't get it.
flip eggbeater
flip atomic. . . everything
a sweet link = tapdown > gyro mirage bsos. I got it bs but didn't get the sauce. I really liked this and it came to me when I did it strongside at the end of one string just randomly and I liked how it felt pretty difficult, but stylie, to "torque(?)" myself back around after the tapdown.
tried to dial gyro butterfly a little more, but kind of got bored with it.
pulled a Rea and tried pixie ducking eggbeater a few times just because my pixie ducking was flawless it seemed (at least today). I cleared the second dex of the eggbeater and came pretty close, but couldn't quite foot it. Shrug. Would've been cool.
flip infinity swirl. Footed like 6 times. Nuts.
broke my plo record. It's up to 11 now.

what killed me was my skooling of pixie whirl. Good GOD I love this trick but it hates me like no other. I can't remember when I bsos'd it but it was a long time ago and I wanted to do it again so I tried, but could only get it on both sides a few times each. I remember at wakahakee Adam Greenwood and I were trying pixie whirl > blur rpt and I got three contacts out of it but could QUITE nail it. But man that was a fun drill. Made me realize I had whirl trick > stepping trick potential when I had never really tried before.

I really wish I didn't live in a colder climate so I could skate AND footbag whenever I want. Or if Syracuse had an indoor skatepark that'd be sweet too.

Anyway, before this post gets too long, I'd just like to make a note that I AM taking better care of myself after sessions and I'll be stretching and being nice to my knees all night tonight in hopes I'll be fine for a possible shred with Ben tomorrow. Peace.

[Darkshredder]

icy hot session with Ben just now. So-so. Fun times. I'm very picky about my shred environments because I'm a wimp so his basement was cramping my style. Still had a couple good runs, most of which were done outside in some cold conditions while I was just warming up.

There was a camera involved. Between this session and a possible session next weekend be prepared for the first video where Ben's playing with another person. It'll be me. Playing footbag. Hopefully I'll get some better things down next time.

[BenRea]

icy hot session with Ben just now. So-so. Fun times. I'm very picky about my shred environments because I'm a wimp so his basement was cramping my style. Still had a couple good runs, most of which were done outside in some cold conditions while I was just warming up.

Sorry I'm a bad host

There was a camera involved.

That's what she said.

[Darkshredder]

nah man I didn't mean it like that at all. It's awesome we got to play at a place we wouldn't be kicked out of. Mormon churches are no go too so we did well with what we had goin for us.

Oh damn. I just was about to say I don't know where my CD for my media maker is for my camera (that's broken) but I just realized it's on this computer, my parents' computer. So uh. I think I'm going to go and rip the files to a CD and then put them on my laptop. Then all I need to figure out is how to get my camera working. I made a breakthrough the other night, though, and realized that the problem MIGHT be because it's on demo for some reason. And I have no idea how to turn it off. I could go online and look up an FAQ on the camera model or some shit but I'm lazy so I think I'm going to bug the Best Buy people tomorrow while I'm bored. And then I may play footbag in the basement garage of the mall. Because I'm cool like that.

ya know my garage isn't really all that bad for shred. It's usually filled with cars, though. I bet in the summer when my parents are almost always gone I could use it for shred. Buuuut then it's the summer and I'd have no reason for using it for playing. Stream of consciousness is fun.

but no. Your house is swell, Ben. It's warm. And that basement's pretty nice.

I just watched a few footbag videos and I've decided I need to up my whirl game. It's pretty basic now and I'm not shitty at the trick. . . just kind of stagnant.

[BenRea]

i thought your whirl game was superb. really good and flowy both sides.

\
i managed to learn how to use iMovie although im pissed it doesnt have slow motion.

at least not to my knowledge. (not much)

i only got one link from me and one from you done just because i spent so ,long trying to figure it out. i'll spend anoth 2 hours or so on it tonight and i could finish. i'll Pm the final product to you.

your first run is a nice both sided whirl run. thats why i mentioned this.

[Darkshredder]

I'm hesitant to make a new topic on dexercising. I did a search for it and only came up with a couple things and they weren't anything too great. So I'm throwing this out for anyone who reads this blog and has an opinion on dexercises. . .

Last night I set up this fire poker stand in my basement and used it as an object to dex around. It went up to about halfway up my thigh between my knee and hip. Not sure if I needed to have it any taller - I couldn't find anything at the ready without going out to my garage or rummaging through my house while my parents were asleep (it was about 1am when I did this). It seemed to work out okay, I mean as long as my leg was doing the proper motion and it was going AROUND something, right? And I was lucky because there was a full-length mirror on the wall so I could see what I was doing. It kind of helped I think.

So I did about 10 minutes going out > in with my left and then another 10 on my right. And then I did a couple minutes doing in > out with my left and about 5 minutes on my right (in > out isn't that hard for me). And sometimes throughout I would ghost some tricks like down double down and barfly on both sides. After a while I actually did feel my right leg was about to be swung accurately around the stand faster and faster. I doubt if it was fast enough to dex a bag, though. I was just training the muscle to remember. I don't really care if I was going fast enough, because when the time comes and I see a bag in the air, I'll most likely attack the dex as fast as it needs to (or much faster, in my case ).

Yes so what do people think of this? Good idea? Bad idea? Waste of time? Not doing it right? Meh? I'm going to see if I can find a better object today because the stand was kind of annoying to work with. It almost fell on my wii twice and then on my DVD player.

- - this all being said I've kind of taken the last two days off (I played for about 15 minutes yesterday waiting for my mom to get out of yoga class) so I'm bored now and I'll play in an hour or two I'd say.

[BenRea]

there was already a dexercising thread

[Darkshredder]

in which section? I've been looking.

EDIT: never mind. I found something ironclad had put up a bit ago. It's fine. I guess I just did too much. Heh. Well I took lots of breaks. Whatever. As long as enough people talk about it I guess it's worth doing.

oh and I didn't get to play. Got shut out of the two possible places to play.

[Darkshredder]

one thing led to another last night and I ended up "barefoot shredding". Probably the first time in my life playing freestyle for more than 3 minutes without shoes on. We were actually barefoot the first time my friends and I hacked with a proper bag. Little bit o' history for ya.

but anyway I don't play barefoot. I can't, really, not as well as some. I have really high arches in my feet along with some other abnormalities, and so I have to stall it practically on the side of my heel if I want to clip it. Which isn't all that great. But went ahead and hit a few things barefoot I'd never done before, some things I knew I'd be able to do anyway and I just wanted to practice.

datw bs
dso bs (flip may have been the. . it was at least very thin)
infinity bs
ripwalk barely sealed. I had to launch myself after the bag to catch it.
blur and blizzard (all this stepping is on my strong. . nooo way in hell I could start out on my flip clipper barefoot)
some atomic stuff: atomsmashers, omlettes, eggplants, that sort of thing. Practiced for a while. Not bad. First or second try with only a few drops.
pixie stuff: plo rpts, smear, smudge, ss mirage, ss illusion, assassin

well you get the point. Just doing things I always do. Just barefoot. BUT - - there were a few surprises. My toe game has apparently improved and my hard work has paid off: quantum is now relatively comfortable. Well, it was working well last night while I was kind of tired. So I hit

toe blur and quantum ss mirage and toe blizzard and toe schmoe and quantum opp. pickup. Everything but toe blur was new as a trick for me. And just about everything that was done was quickly hit. . . except q. ss mirage. I had taken a break and then came back to it and had lost some of the magic inside of me. So it took a bit of work to get. Like four more tries.

so there's my barefoot session. Will I do it again? Probably. Will I plan on it? Nope. Barefoot just isn't me. Looking to get out and try once again today to find a place to have a proper session before I leave again for Albany.

[BenRea]

yo, i found out what hopping is...

uptime bubba

sounds pretty cool, you should try it.

nice on the barefoot stuff. i do it all the time when i just roam around in my house. ripwalk is prolly the hardest (in terms of barefoot) that i hit.


shred this weekend! more video!

[Darkshredder]

there's going to be a video of me (two of them!!) coming out soon.

I'd just like to send out a preemptive excuse for myself before the video is released. It's a good example of my style and . . . flow? But I can do a few more components that aren't shown. Stepping was shit while we filmed. So I couldn't do too many tripless things. But whatever. I had some good stuff. So I'm pleased. And it was a good time getting kicked out of a shred spot twice.

Oh and on the drive home I was happy with the shred (especially after the camera was turned off) but I entered into the serious footbagger mindset again and was all critical of myself while I walked back to the car.
so this is it. I'm going to put myself through some hardcore shred and train really hard the rest of this semester. I'm going to start taking records more seriously, put challenges on the front burner, and really start to push. I think it was last winter where I was making progress and decided to hold back a little so I could clean up style and form a little. But I've decided I don't need that now. I just need to become fully tripless. As in I'd like to get to the level of confidence where I can grab a bag and bust out a 7 or 8 tripless string as easy as breathing. I can't remember what my tripless record is but I'll find out soon enough.

Saturday, January 19th. 2008. The first night of my tripless push. I'll be shredding in my garage tonight.

EDIT: forgot to mention I hit pogo blizzard a couple times today. Fun little ditty. Wasn't too bad. Just looks cooler than it really is. So I was stoked. Oh and I'm not going to play tonight. . . I was just really in the mood to post something "epic" . No. It's a rest night. I'll stretch and maybe do a little barefoot DLO schooling.

I'm playing with Greg Pestillo for the first time since. . . . one of the first weekends back last summer. I didn't even know if he was still shredding. But apparently someone from NYC is coming to Syracuse (passing through?) to visit people and he wanted to shred. So yeah I'll do that. peace.

[BenRea]

imported the video...



61 minutes of shreddage to edit now...

[Darkshredder]

thanks one million Ben. You're a swell guy for doing all that. If you want to share the load I've got editing software on this desktop. Just drop off a bit of it and I can see what I can do with it.

we should call it Dark Ray Shred. Mwaha! Get it?

as a side note, the guy from NYC isn't coming after all so Greg and I will be a floundering around to find a place to play. Probably hit up Manley Fieldhouse arena and invade that place.

[mc]

can't wait to see a video of you guys!!!

[BenRea]

alright, i finished the video editing part, now i need the music... were you going to send it to me?


im glad you're excited matt!

[Darkshredder]

yeah it's going to be sweet. It'll be pretty much the first longer video Ben will be in and it'll be the first video I've been in for years and no one really has seen it. The Cold Session is more of us constantly warming up and just doing our best to keep the bag up. The second will be more up to snuff I'd say and hopefully people will prop it up. It doesn't really show me doing much of my stepping shuffle and DLOish stuff but that's because that hasn't really shown up in the last few sessions I've had. Sucky.

but I just got back from a session with Greg. We went to Gold's Gym. Ben, this is a DEFINITE spot for us to play from now on. My parents have cards and I'm allowed one guest. . . that'd be you, sir. We played in this pretty nice exercise bike room that's wide open with an outlet. It's sunday so no one was around. So we plugged in Greg's music box and played to our hearts content. . . poorly. Haha. Mostly we just sat next to his player and he let me listen to some new music he's into and every once in a while we'd get up and try some stuff. After a while we both kind of got our shred legs again and he was hitting some of his old tricks again.

Greg's highlights:
mirage > legover (rpt) > illusion > butterfly > far osis > hand catch
stepping far osis
fairy legover
footed drifter bsos (this was new to him. I couldn't remember if he had ever done a drifter and apparently he hadn't. So I helped him out on that)
a very leggy atomic dex was cleared.
infinity x3

Mine:
I wanted to show Greg some of my new components so I was one a roll showing off:
helix, vortex bs, little apple (I LOOOOOVE little apple), phoenix and assassin, vertigo, barfly, and some quantum stuffings.
nice flowy gyro string with gyro whirl and diving osis b2b. Thanks to Greg and his stylin gangsta rap. I flow like water when I play to hip hop. What can I say?
I hit every tomahawk on my strong side. That was awesome. I never do tomahawks.
symple double pickup attempts. HAHA. Silly Pat.
and more. Can't remember.

and some other stuff. A few atomic-based strings. Finally. My shuffle was so bad. K well that's all for now. I need to go to a bar with my parents and eat peanuts. Peace.

[BenRea]

alrighty, you still didnt tell me the song sooo, i just used my own that i picked out.

lol


the vid is 11 minutes long....


thats long just so you know.

there is other stuff in there though. i mean its not just straight up footbag.

you'll see what i mean. i'll send the megafile to you later tonight.

[Darkshredder]

11 minutes? Let's just make a DVD and take the footbag community by storm, not unlike our occasional monopoly on the first two places in the footblogs. I bet so many people are just waiting to buy a DVD of us playing. I mean come on. We're superstars.

I've watched the first video like 18 times. It's so weird seeing myself play. I'm an odd footbag artist. I can see why people say my pixies are weird, my toe stalls are cool, and that I look like I'm stoned when I play. It's just eye-opening because I think I'm moving three times faster than I actually am. So I'm going to take this opportunity to learn from these videos and start to make more accurate sets. and other adjustments.

oh and my ducking was waaay wrong that day we filmed the first vid. I noticed that. It hit my neck or my ear like every other time. Crazy. I had fun though.

Yeah Ben send me the upload tonight and I'll stay up for the hour that it'll take to download. I've got nothing to do but sit and digest this chinese food I just ate. Pineapple chicken with white rice is what's hot.

[BenRea]

sorry i didnt send it. actually im uploading as we speak. i went to a bangin' party. lots o' fun.


30 more minutes.


its a fun video and i think it will be enjoyed and debated.

i'll post the cold session as a "BONUS!" video.

but you can tell me the final verdict of if you want to post it or not.

we put all that hard wok into it, so why not?


im excited you're learning from the video because thats what i do too. it was the only way for me to learn before i met you.


anyway. peace out.

[Darkshredder]

s'alright home skillet. I'm heading back to siena right now. Just wanted to check modified one last time. I watched 3:10 to Yuma last night. Sweet movie. I've been waiting for people to make a solid western. It's been a while. Not since Open Range I'd say. I like westerns.

oh and Ben I just realized something. I'm really not all that far from home when I'm at college and this semester's going to be light. So PM me or post somewhere if you're getting really bored or want a longer session or something because I can make a trip over some weekend. And if you're shredding with Rob we can get a three person hack going. Just a little thought to spice up Syracuse shred before spring break.

all this about Mosher going to skateparks and riding his fixed gear has inspired me to find an indoor park in Albany. I found one. It's called The Shelter or something. So yeah I'm going to make a couple trips out there and bring my board.

Oh and I don't know what happened. I haven't said anything in the last few days since I've been a Modified addict but I'm seriously obsessing over footbag right now. Not sure what it is, but it's like flooding my every thought the last few nights. Keeping me up at night. that's never good. I think it's good I'm going back to school right when I am.